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The large Australian publishers do indeed bear a good share of the blame, though they are of course mostly local offshoots of the Big 5. Australians have been ripped off forever in all sorts of areas. In books they are still aided and abetted by successive Governments. For instance, it is incredible to me that we still have parallel import legislative despite many recommendations from our productivity commission and the like. Agency pricing has been in force here continuously since its implementation by the Conspirators. Our competition authorities did not even look into it. The multi-national publishers are only taking advantage of the opportunities provided to them. Fortunately, there are now a number of easy solutions available to avoid this.
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